The commission’s Todd Nordeen says staffers at check stations will be asking hunters to allow removal of lymph nodes from elk carcasses to test for the disease.

The tests have about a two-week turn-around, and staffers will notify hunters if their animals tested positive. All test results will be posted to links at the bottom of the commission’s website page on the disease.

Nordeen says lymph nodes from deer will be collected during the firearm deer season.

The deadly disease attacks the brains of deer, elk and moose. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends avoiding consumption of meat from animals that look sick or test positive for the disease.

More than 50 scientists and students from four universities will participate during the 2019 and 2020 storm seasons. The project has received a $2.5 million in support from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

University officials say the study is the largest of its kind, based on the geographical area covered and the number of drones and other assets deployed.

The University of Colorado Boulder, Texas Tech University, the University of Oklahoma and the National Severe Storms Laboratory are also participating.

The research is intended to improve the conceptual model of supercell thunderstorms.

“Safety has become a much bigger issue over the years,” said John Jensenius, a Maine-based lightning expert with the National Weather Service. “(Schools) are taking action to try and keep people safe.”

Roughly 300 people are struck each year in the United States, experts say, and more than 30 don’t survive.

The university’s WeatherSentry system detected a strike within 8 miles (13 kilometers) of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln after Nebraska received the opening kickoff. The lightning required a 30-minute delay in play, and subsequent strikes restarted the 30-minute clock.

Athletic director Jeff Novotny at Abraham Lincoln High in Council Bluffs, Iowa, told the Omaha World-Herald that he sets his phone app to alert him when lightning is spotted within 30 miles (48 kilometers) of an event. That lets him tell game officials that play might have to be suspended. When the strikes get within about 10 miles (16 kilometers), play is suspended.

National guidelines for high schools call for suspending play for 30 minutes if lightning is seen or thunder is heard, said Nate Neuhaus, assistant director of the Nebraska School Activities Association. The 30-minute clock is restarted if lightning or thunder occurs again.

Steve Eubanks, supervisor of athletics for the Omaha Public Schools, said a phone app came in handy a couple football seasons ago during a game at Burke High. Lightning was detected, so play was suspended. But the storm soon passed and the game resumed about an hour later.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican who’s among President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics in the Senate says he “regularly” considers leaving his party and becoming an independent.

That’s what Nebraska’s Ben Sasse writes on Twitter in response to a commenter who said she believed changing her Democratic affiliation to “no-party” would be “part of the solution.” She then asked the first-term senator whether he might follow suit.

His response: “yep — regularly consider it (except the ‘from Dem’ part)”

Just before that, Sasse wrote of his fear that “we’re headed toward a place where hefty majorities of both sides of the electorate are going to regularly embrace unsupported and blatantly false assertions.”

Republicans hold a 51-49 edge in the Senate going into the November elections.